In the 1992 election to the 13th Knesset, the first Israeli election in which the qualifying threshold was raised from 1% to 1.5%, the Likud bloc lost five Knesset seats because of lists that did not pass the new threshold, enabling Labor\u2019s Yitzhak Rabin to form his second government.<\/p>\n
Israel Elections: A polling station in Jerusalem, as Israelis vote in their general elections, on March 23, 2021. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL\/FLASH 90)<\/p>\n
In the elections to the 25th Knesset in 2022, the \u201cjust not Bibi\u201d bloc was greatly weakened because Meretz, with which the Labor party under Merav Michaeli refused to run in a single list, failed to pass the threshold.<\/p>\n
Had the two parties run in a single list, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s \u201call Right\u201d government formed after that election would have had the support of only 61 Knesset members.<\/p>\n
If Netanyahu (then leader of the opposition) had not played every trick in the game to get Bezalel Smotrich\u2019s Religious Zionist Party to agree to run together with Itamar Ben-Gvir\u2019s Otzma Yehudit party in a single list, it is possible that at least one of them would not have passed the qualifying threshold, and the \u201call Right\u201d government we still have today would never have been formed.<\/p>\n
In the current buildup to the upcoming elections, the two Jewish blocs are worried that their potential members will fail to pass the qualifying threshold.<\/p>\n
This is while the Arab parties ensured that the votes of Balad, which failed to pass the threshold in the elections to the 25th Knesset, would not be lost again by agreeing that it would run this time in a single list with Hadash and Ta\u2019al.<\/p>\n
Opinion polls suggest that this move will increase the total number of Arab seats in the 26th Knesset from 10 to 13 \u2013 or even 15.<\/p>\n
Until last Tuesday (September 1), the potential number of seats that might be lost due to lists failing to pass the qualifying threshold was as many as 14 \u2013 mostly from the Right\/religious bloc.<\/p>\n
What changed on Sept. 1 was that Netanyahu, after receiving an absolute refusal from Ben-Gvir to run together with Smotrich again, whose party was considered to be in danger of not passing the qualifying threshold if it ran on its own, managed to get Smotrich to run in a single list with Moshe Feiglin\u2019s Zehut party.<\/p>\n
Feiglin is a rather eccentric right-wing libertarian who was a Likud MK in 2013-2015 and ran independently in the 2019 election, but withdrew when opinion polls showed that he would fail to pass the threshold.<\/p>\n
He then ran again as part of the Likud list in the 2022 elections, but in an unrealistic slot. He decided to run again this time, as leader of the Zehut party, and without a real chance of passing the qualifying threshold.<\/p>\n
At the moment, it seems as though the Religious Zionist\/Zehut<\/a> list has a good chance of safely passing the qualifying threshold.<\/p>\n Last chances<\/p>\n It is said that Netanyahu is still trying to get Ofer Winter to join Smotrich and Feiglin with his new People of Israel party.<\/p>\n The party is right-wing and critical of Netanyahu over his conduct over the last three years, but is nevertheless willing to join a government headed by him after the elections.<\/p>\n The solution Winter propagates for the Gaza Strip is the voluntary emigration of its whole Palestinian population. If People of Israel runs on its own, it is liable not to pass the qualifying threshold.<\/p>\n